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Besides, soon enough, she hoped to find a way to get her big family here with her, and that would mean a return to the bustling lifestyle that had kept her out of trouble in the first place.
“What are you thinking about?” Jhon asked her, looking up from where he had been laying a blanket on the ground.
“Oh,” she said, realizing she was smiling. “I was just thinking about my family.”
He looked a little surprised.
“Do you miss them?” he asked, after a moment.
“Of course,” she told him. “I’ve never really been away from them before. Do you miss yours?”
“Oh wow,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I was homesick. The Invicta came for me when I was a boy.”
“Why?” she asked, watching him spread out the contents of the picnic basket the droid had given him on the blanket.
“Dragonets must be trained to harness their shift while they are very young,” he told her. “Every day is crucial when it comes to turning a feral young shifter into a trained warrior.”
“Feral?” she echoed.
“As a boy, no,” he told her. “My parents tended to my manners, and I was good-natured enough. All of my people have dragon in their blood, but it only comes to the surface for a rare few. So, no one was prepared when my dragon emerged. Least of all me. It was unfettered. I had no idea how to control it, or what to do with it. So, my parents contacted the Invicta immediately, and within a week, I was packed up and on a training ship.”
“That sounds terrible,” Ella said, her heart breaking for him. “You must have been so scared and so sad.”
“You know, no one ever says that,” he said, looking down at the blanket. “They all say I was lucky to become an Invicta, and I was. But, yeah, of course I was homesick at the time. Anyway, it was necessary. It probably saved my life, and my parents’ too.”
“You were that dangerous?” she breathed.
“Of course,” he told her, nodding. “You can’t imagine how enormous true dragons are until you see one. The size alone could bring down a building, not to mention the claws, the teeth and of course, the fire.”
She nodded, trying and failing to picture the man in front of her turning into something so dangerous.
“Some families try to hide the child when the signs appear,” he said quietly. “Those times are when the most horrible tragedies strike. My parents did the right thing calling it in when they did. I don’t have any tragedies on my conscience.”
“Except the one,” she said, indicating Bo, who was happily waving his arms and legs at the lichen-deer.
“Yes, our collective tragedy,” Jhon agreed immediately. “We all have that on our conscience.”
“But if you weren’t involved personally, I don’t understand,” Ella said. “How can you dedicate yourself to making amends for something you didn’t do.”
“My people did it,” he said simply. “Whether I was personally involved or not, I am personally responsible to set things right, or as right as we can make them.”
She nodded slowly. She knew of the Invicta only marginally, but all she knew of them spoke of their extreme integrity and noble intentions.
Jhon carefully prepared Bo’s cell of milk, while Ella watched.
“It’s that easy?” she asked him, amazed.
“The prepared cells make it easy,” he told her. “When we get to the homestead, I can show you how to do it from scratch if you’re ever in a pinch.”
“Thank you,” she told him.
He held out the cell and she got Bo snuggled in the crook of her arm, then took it.
The baby tucked into his meal with great enthusiasm.
“He loves to eat,” she said fondly, watching him.
“Just like his mama,” Jhon said.
